If I have learned anything from my years as a Scout Parent — first with Cub Scouts (cute) and then Boy Scouts (cute, but gangly and sometimes smell funny) — it is that all the wrong people are earning badges around here. If you are a scout parent you soon learn that the boys earn […]

As winter relaxed its grip earlier this month, six consecutive days of bright sunshine and blue skies left no doubt that spring was on its way. Red maple buds burst open, and a pair of eastern bluebirds began visiting a nest box on the edge of the yard. They were just beginning to investigate and […]

With the school year coming to a close in another month or so, many students will be looking for employment on farms. But are all students allowed to operate machinery, handle livestock, apply chemicals, or work unlimited hours? For the most part, the answer is no. Know the law As an employer, it is your […]

Hello again, The Farm Service Agency has a loan program to help rural youth establish and operate income producing agriculture projects. The youth loan program is connected to their participation in 4-H or FFA, and the project must be planned and operated with the assistance of their adviser and parents. The project must produce sufficient […]

I went home from school one day, itching to tell everyone about my new friend. I was in second grade, and had spent recess playing with a tiny pixie of a girl named Kathy Somerlade. My only complaint about my new friend was that she was far too tiny to be a good teeter-totter partner. […]

Not one new rule, not one new regulation and not one new knuckle-rapping regulator was created in 2009 to rein in the knuckle-draggers that traded an estimated $592 trillion, or 12 times the world’s total economic output, in over-the-counter, in-the-dark derivatives last year.

Local pastures have been repeatedly stressed over the past few years. The forage plants have struggled to survive the extremely dry weather a couple of summers ago, to extremely wet seasons, including flooding in some areas, to below normal temperatures for an extended period of time this past winter. Let us also not forget the […]